The Noho Marae

The Noho Marae

On Tuesday the 6th of March the yr 7’s and 8’s went to the Arahura marae, it was lots of fun.

First was the powhiri; we waited at the gate for the tangata whenua to open the gates and the
karanga to start. As they were doing the karanga we slowly walked onto the marae. When we
made it to the marae we let the boys take their shoes off before the girls. Then we go inside
the marae and the men did the whaikorero (speeches). When the whaikorero (speeches) were
done we went to the wharekai for morning tea. After the morning tea we shared our mihi and
Ms Kemp read us a book about Poutini and Waitaiki.  

Later in the day we went to the Arahura river to collect some pounamu (Green stone) anything
we find we can keep. Only five people found some pounamu and four of them were boys. Most
stones that I thought were pounamu (Green stone) were serpentine. Serpentine is pounamu
(Green stone) that just hadn’t been in the ground for as long.

From the river we walked down a track to the beach and had a sculptures building competition.
In my group were Charlie, Korban, Daniel, Summer and me. We built a waka. We had sticks poking
out of the ground for the sides. For the inside of the waka we put sticks for panels. We had two
massive logs for the front of the waka and the back of the waka. By then we had to go back so we
left the sculptures and went back to the marae.   

In conclusion, for me the marae visit was really fun. I would definitely go back to the marae. My
favourite part of the marae was the building of the sculptures because it was fun building it.